Data leaks by their nature subject people to some kind of unnecessary risk, but this latest could be genuinely dangerous. Researchers at vpnMentor have discovered that a porn cam affiliate network, PussyCash, left nearly 20GB of models’ extremely sensitive data exposed in an Amazon S3 bucket. The repository included not only 875,000 keys for different file types (such as photos and videos), but personal info for over 4,000 models worldwide that includes their names, ID photos, passport/ID numbers, release forms and driver’s license images. Some of the data could be up to 20 years old, but other info is just weeks old — there’s a very real chance stalkers, extortionists and others could have used this to threaten many of the models.

“Home Affairs is developing a Face Verification Service which matches a person’s photo against images used on one of their evidence of identity documents to help verify their identity,” the Home Affairs agency wrote in a submission. “This could assist in age verification, for example by preventing a minor from using their parent’s driver license to circumvent age verification controls.”

You’d think online porn would be the least of a government’s concern, particularly given the complete failure of the UK to block it. Australia is bound to face many of the same issues, including the technical challenge of blocking anything on the internet in age of VPNs. There’s also the thorny privacy issue of having to essentially create a database of porn viewers.

To enforce the proposed law, Australia would use a new facial recognition scheme that could be accessed by banks, government agencies, ISPs and other companies. That alone would be a privacy nightmare, creating a tempting target for hackers.

The government believes porn verification could work since other counties, including Italy and Denmark, have successfully created age verification systems for online gambling. A sex industry lobby group suggested that ISPs could simply provide stronger parental controls to allow parents to filter websites. However, the University of New South Wales’ Law Society pointed out that nothing is 100 percent effective, as there are literally millions of domains and apps that let users get around blocking.

Deepfake videos have become more convincing as of late, especially recent ones from Ctrl Shift Face that show comedian/actor Bill Hader’s face replaced by Tom Cruise. Those are amusing, but other deepfake software — like those that places the faces of actors like Scarlett Johansson onto the bodies of porn stars — are a disturbing invasion of their privacy.

On the political side, a deepfake video was doctored in a different way to make it seem like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was drunk and slurring her words during a speech. At the time, Facebook refused to remove the video, saying it would instead display a third-party fact-checking article highlighting the fact the it had been edited.

California Assembly representative Marc Berman said that such videos could deceive the public and affect election outcomes. “Voters have a right to know when video, audio, and images that they are being shown, to try to influence their vote in an upcoming election, have been manipulated and do not represent reality,” he said in a press release. “[That] makes deepfake technology a powerful and dangerous new tool in the arsenal of those who want to wage misinformation campaigns to confuse voters.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, took issue with the law. “Despite the author’s good intentions, this bill will not solve the problem of deceptive political videos,” it said in a letter to Newsom. “It will only result in voter confusion, malicious litigation and repression of free speech.”

Unlike previous billboard shockers, this was definitely not a paid-for stunt. Auburn Hills Police Department has since released a photograph and video of two men suspected of breaking into the billboard’s control room and hacking its computer. If found, the pair could face a possible penalty of 90 days in jail, and/or a $500 fine for promoting pornography, as well as potential burglary charges for forcing entry to the building.

Reports in local media have repeatedly noted how dangerous the incident was, with many rubbernecking drivers slowing down to gawp and film the scene, creating numerous opportunities for accidents. Princess Leia, one of the adult film actresses featured in the movie, told Vice she was relieved that no-one was hurt. “It is my sincere hope that this will open a larger public discussion regarding the safety of electronic billboards,” she said.

One account Tweeted, “Marzia Pewds KickItOut Tusk Will Keane Irish Sea Phil Lynoott Chopra josh kroenke Lavazza Joe Sugg Dulux Nick Timothy Ben Unwin Amy Adams US Steel Little Brother USA Network Congrats Felix.” US Steel was trending on Twitter on Tuesday after reports that the company plans to lay off hundreds of workers in Michigan, while Amy Adams was getting thousands of birthday wishes from people. The goal of these spam accounts, all of which are pretending to be women, seems to be the same as their Instagram counterparts: to get you to visit a sketchy porn site that will then ask for your personal information, including email address, age, location and, if you get far enough, credit card number.

What’s more interesting is that the accounts we discovered showed up under the “Top” tab of Twitter’s trending section, not “Latest,” meaning they were one of the first things people saw if they viewed the river of tweets on any hot topic. All the accounts were created in August and they used the “Pinned Tweet” feature of the app to try to promote a website. “Looking for a guy with a good dick and for sex and relationships,” tweeted the account @calvi_anna, whose tweets and pictures have now all been removed. In that same pinned tweet, the bot added, “My WhatsApp is on the site in the profile information about me, call me. Watch my private videos for free after a simple registration.”

Thing is, even if you did want to get into a relationship with “calvin_anna,” once you click on the URL she tweeted, you get redirected to sites like snapfuck.com, benaughty.com or onenightfriend.com. Some of these are the same sites you’ll come across when you fall for a scheme from the bots leaving comments on Instagram, except on Twitter they’re using trending topics to run their operation.

Twitter told Engadget it is working hard to ensure this type of spam doesn’t appear in search results or conversations. But, the company said, sometimes it can miss these dubious accounts and when that happens people do have the option to report them.

And while Twitter doesn’t explicitly ban adult content, its “Sensitive media policy” does state that users can’t post full or partial nudity “within areas that are highly visible on Twitter, including in live video, profile or header images.” These porn bots aren’t violating that policy, but it’s clear they’re not authentic — and Twitter does have guidelines against that. According to the Twitter Rules on authenticity, “You may not use Twitter’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on Twitter.”

Needless to say, Ninja saw a number of problems with the move. It’s not just that Twitch effectively replaced his presence with recommendations, something he said wasn’t true of “any other” channel, it’s that it was tarnishing his brand. Kids could have seen this material, and he didn’t have any control over it. While Ninja apologized, he also stressed that he was trying to get rid of the promotions, if not remove the Twitch channel altogether.

We’ve asked Twitch for comment.

Whatever its response, this isn’t a great look for the service. It was no surprise that Ninja’s stream would scale back (Twitch partners aren’t allowed to stream on rival services), many only expected it to remain idle, not become a billboard for other broadcasters. It certainly underscores the significance of Ninja’s switch. His leap to Mixer represented a competitive blow, and Twitch clearly wasn’t happy about it.

Naughty America created the lenses to peddle subscriptions to its family of sites. They brought some performers (with varying levels of clothing) to Snapchat’s camera and let people place virtual porn stars in their own environments. The company’s CEO Andreas Hronopoulos believed the lenses were permitted on the platform, as they weren’t publicly available. Snapchat begged to differ and swiftly removed them, along with the studio’s profile. It told Variety the lenses violated the terms of service, community guidelines and lens studio submission guidelines.

Now, Hronopoulos says Naughty America users are downloading the files and making their own versions of the lenses. It might be harder for Snapchat to track those variants down and remove them. It urges users to flag questionable material, and its systems can tell when lenses are becoming popular, perhaps prompting Snapchat’s team to take a closer look. However, much in the way other platforms moderate potentially unsavory content, it seems Snapchat might have to take reactive rather than preventative measures if it wants to stamp out the lenses.